A New Direction in Sales

I have been a quiet on the glass applique front. Hubby and I were nearly all consumed with selling the house. We have decided to shut down the online shop and go in a different direction. Our new location has put us very close to several well organised craft and artisan markets. We have decided to sell our exciting range of fused glass jewellery through the markets.

I have thought that I don't want to make it impossible for people to buy online so for the present I will put some photos on this blog and say that if you would like to purchase something just let me know and I can list it as a custom order on Etsy.

I have to say that sewing is still my favourite past time and I have been busy making some special little keepsake pouches to sell with the jewellery.

Cheers,
Val

Product Update - a golden sun and a golden hopping kangaroo

It never ceases to amaze me how much detail can be achieved when cutting the glass. The latest additions to the shop are the golden sun with many curved points and the golden hopping kangaroo. Both these items are badge pins suitable as lapel brooches or summer scarf pins. They can also be used as features on various items like bags and purses.

We have priced these with only a small profit margin so they are quite affordable to give as gifts and buying two means free postage in Australia and half price postage overseas. They come presented in a black velvet gift box with a hinged lid.


Cheers,
Val

Glass notes - making little squares

I spent quite a while making the squares I needed for the block I had chosen from my design book. I needed some distraction so I found a couple of cute animals to make.

The first is a cat face. I will paint the face on with black glass paint. The second is a bird. I will put little block dots on the eyes with glass paint. I have tried something similar with a dog face. With just one background layer of glass they are quite thin but will probably make good buttons or brooches to put in the Glass Applique shop. I plan to try to put some dangly legs on the bird. Will have to see how that goes. I will fire these two on a soft fuse. Maybe 760 for 5 mins. I am still deciding. I may go a bit hotter but I don't want them to shrink in too much.

The blocks I made are made up of 16 little squares. Since 3cm square is a good size I cut off a 3cm x 1.5 cm piece first,

then I cut that in half,

then I cut each little square into 4 smaller squares.

I am still struggling with colours. I have always had to work on getting my quilt colours right. It is just the same with the glass but even harder because they can change when they are fired.

This is what I settled on. I still have to wipe each piece and glue them to a background layer.

These two I will do on a full fuse 804 for 5 mins. I usually do 10 mins soak but I don't want the corners to round too much.

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Cheers,
Val

Working on methods

As well as experimenting with different fusing programs. I keep finding patterns I want to make that take a bit of thinking.

I really wanted to make some cotton reels but I couldn't work out a way to get the angles right for the spool and the background. I was playing around with another design when it struck me that I could draw a template with cutting lines, cut out 2 squares into the same shapes then mix and match them. Just like the stack and slash method for quilt blocks.

Here are some templates for cutting. The cardboard pieces are to trace around in my design book so I can make designs the right size. The one on the right is for the cotton reel.

The one on the left is for the wonky 9 patch. I made two in pink and purple. Nothing is fired yet. I need to make up enough pieces to fill the kiln.

We really wanted to make some transparent earrings and use plastic posts but when we put the posts on and tried to put the backs on they were pretty wobbly and the back nuts were difficult to get on. They have all gone in the give away pile. We won't be buying any more plastic earring backs or making transparent earrings. A shame, because they do look pretty.

I spent several days working on the card design to mount the earrings and pendants. It looks great and we have attached lots of earrings and some pendants and buttons. We have a business meeting most mornings at breakfast and I record all our ideas using the Inspiration app. I like using boxes and arrows rather than a simple list.

Here are some of the pendants ready to go.

Cheers,
Val

Some tack fusing and new pendants

We are still trying out lots of things. Trouble is it takes a day and a night to see and touch the result. It is like we are moving in slow motion. I have tried some more complex patterns and trialled some tack fusing at 735 for 10 mins hold. It gives a smooth but crisp look.

Here are some bits and pieces waiting for the kiln. I got the idea for the dragonfly from Pinterest.

Here are some of the pendants I have been making.

I have been searching with lots of different search words to try to find quilt related pendants or jewellery. There is some mosaic sort of patchwork out there but nothing complex. I also found a gift shop in the US that sells several different simple block patterns but they look like he used his scrap glass to make them. They didn't seem very colourful.

We hope to buy the shopping cart software beginning of September and have our shop operating by middle of September. The website will be glassapplique.com
It is all such fun :)

Cheers,
Val